Harris County settles about 100,000 unpaid tolls with rental car firm

Updated 12:17 am, Monday, August 27, 2012

Drivers blowing through a few $1.30 tolls in a rental car can cause big-money headaches for the car's owner, as Enterprise Rent-A-Car knows all too well.

In what officials say is the largest settlement in the 29-year history of the Harris County Toll Road Authority, Enterprise agreed this month to pay the county $1.15 million for roughly 100,000 toll violations dating back to 2003.

The firm had been facing a $4.5 million bill, comprised largely of private attorney and administrative fees. In the settlement, approved by Commissioners Court on Aug. 7, the unpaid tolls totaled $283,541, just a fourth of the total amount.

The growth of electronic toll systems caught the industry off-guard, Enterprise officials acknowledge. The county settled four years' worth of toll violations by Avis customers for $190,000 four years ago, and accepted a $30,000 check for unpaid tolls from another rental firm before that. County officials and rental company representatives, however, say the problems that led to such backlogs largely have been solved.

"Trying to collect tolls from renters is a huge hassle of time and money and resources for car rental companies. If they could make it go away, they would," said Chris Brown, executive editor of Auto Rental News. "You read on chat rooms, 'Run the toll and let them try to come after you.' With electronic tolling, there are just a lot of issues."

Vendor hired

The Enterprise dispute was a timing issue. If rental companies provide a toll violator's information to the tolling agency within 30 days of the violation, Texas law says it becomes the agency's problem to find the person. Getting the paperwork processed quickly enough, however, was an issue for both sides, even after the company and toll road authority installed software several years ago to fix the problem, Assistant County Attorney Nick Turner said.

"The position Enterprise took, basically, was, 'Look, we're not responsible because the statute says we're not, so all we need to do is provide notice of who the renter is and we won't be responsible for that.' That's a bigger undertaking than maybe they thought it would be," Turner said, noting that the firm has 35,000 vehicles in the Houston area.

He said Enterprise now works with a vendor that ensures all of its roughly 1 million vehicles' license plates nationwide are listed in an account. The vendor pays the county when HCTRA's toll cameras pick up a plate on that list. The vendor then charges the tolls, with a fee, to the renter's credit card, said company spokeswoman Laura Bryant.

Bryant said the process is working, not only for tolls, but for red-light camera fines and parking tickets, too.

"That doesn't mean the process is perfect, but we're doing everything we can to make it as good as it can be," she said. "This has been a huge learning curve for everybody."

Hertz uses tags

Hertz Rent-A-Car spokeswoman Paula Rivera said her company's third-party vendor maintains a listing of license plate numbers and electronic tag accounts so drivers can be assessed tolls, with a service fee, on toll roads with different types of collection systems. The vendor also processes toll violations that occur when drivers use tag lanes without displaying a tag, which Hertz provides for a daily fee.

Hertz's Texas-based vehicles are equipped with TxTags, Rivera said, which work statewide.

"Hertz wanted to provide a convenience service for our customers, especially in those urban areas where roads can become quite congested," she said.

Avis Budget Group spokeswoman Alice Pereira said her firm also uses a third-party vendor, which pays tolls to HCTRA and then attempts to collect from renters.